Monday, June 17, 2013

Fred People Problems

I have Fred people problems.

Here's my newest Fred bike:

I greatly enjoy to ride this Fred bike, and naturally it became my default Fred bike from the moment I accepted delivery.

This Fred bike is equipped with one of those "PressFit 30" bottom bracket shells, which is what all the cool people who ride custom bikes are using now. It was also equipped with a certain type of bottom bracket adapter so I can use a pinchy bolt-type Shimano crank, which are the only cranks I want to use in the world. (I do have bikes with other kinds of cranks, but that's exactly why I only want to use the pinchy bolt-type Shimano crank. The other cranks, for one reason or another, suck.) Everything was working just fine together.

However, I recently overhauled the bike, and it was time to pull the bottom bracket since the bottom bracket shell was full of all kinds of disgusting scum and frumunda which is something that happens to bikes. Naturally, the bottom bracket adapter was not supposed to be reused because it was plastic and this is the bike industry, so I replaced it with one made from metal that seemed like it would be a lot more better. And I rode. And rode.

The new bottom bracket adapter thingy was not more better. The crank kind of wiggled in there no matter what I did. So I called the company that makes the bottom bracket adapter thingy because they're the kind of company you can just call and be like, "Hey, duders, like, my bottom bracket's got like all this play in it and I'm totally bummed because it's not epic." That's what I did, and company was all like, "Oh, yeah, duder, we know what that is," and they sent me these new bearing cover thingies to put in the bottom bracket adapter thingy, and I put them in, but the crank was still all wiggly in there anyway.

By this time I was staring down the barrel of the Rapha Gentlemen's Race. I did not want to spend 130 miles being irritated by the sensation of having slightly wiggly cranks on an otherwise dialed bicycle, nor did I want to spend the days leading up to the ride installing the same type of adapter I had previously had in there and getting that all dialed in. I wanted to, you know, ride a bike and not think about anything else.

So ultimately I just said "Fuck it" and decided to use my old Fred bike.

Naturally, I still haven't gotten around to sorting out my PressFit 30 bottom bracket issues, because I'm lazy and have a million bikes. Instead, I've still been riding my old Fred bike, which is made of plastic because back when I got it I was still nominally a bike racer and even stupider than I am now. And last Friday I headed out on my plastic Fred bike for a short afternoon ride:

It was a very pleasant ride, with the wind at my scranus, my crank stable and secure in my threaded bottom bracket shell, and the crunch of the 17-year cicadas under my tires:

Yes, the road was literally crawling with these orange-eyed fuckers.

Anyway, on I rode:

And then on the way back to my mansion I stopped at this outdoor grill shack-type establishment to pick up a sandwich, and I did that thing where you jauntily prop the bike up on one pedal on a curb. As I was waiting for my sandwich and salivating, the bike decided it wanted to fall over, and it fell right into a pole. I didn't think anything of it because it's a bike and they fall over and get scratched and who the hell cares, but as I got back on it I noticed this on the top tube:

On a normal bike this would be just a scratch, but this bike has one of those scary plastic top tubes that you can squeeze between two fingers, and I can't tell if the thing that looks like a crack is just the clear coat or the crabon itself. So I Tweeted it to the company whose decals are on the bike, and I got the following reply:

@bikesnobnyc Hard to say from the picture. I would recommend taking it to the dealer and have them do a proper inspection. Have a great day!
— Specialized (@iamspecialized) June 14, 2013

"Have a great day!" my scranus.

So these are Fred people problems: endless futzing with your goofy bottom bracket system and wondering if your plastic frame is toast because it gently brushed against something.

I do not like PressFit 30, and I do not like plastic bikes.

See, once you start getting old you want bikes that can fall over a lot and that you can remove and replace parts on repeatedly.

If only there were some way to combine a frame made from metal with a traditional threaded bottom bracket shell...

Oh well, maybe someday someone will make a road bike like that.

In the meantime, my course of action is clear: 1) Replace the adapter on my metal bike with the previous type of adapter that was working fine; 2) Put a sticker on the ambiguous crack on the plastic bike; 3) Sell the plastic bike frame on eBay and put "Never Crashed!" in the description.

And fortunately, I do have a mountaining bike with metal tubes and a threaded bottom bracket, and that's what I spent all day Father's day riding:

Can people not live without their ridiculous vintage affectations for more than a week? This is like those hotels where they put a turntable in the room for people who need to listen to crackly records from the 1970s every second of their lives, even while they're on vacation. Clearly there's a market for this though, which is why someone needs to launch a comprehensive "identity share" program:

("The Bootsy" is just one of the thousands of identities from which you can choose.)

It's a great way sample an identity you could never pull off at home.

Lastly, here's someone who sucks at riding a bike and at life in general:

I'm very sorry I hit you with my bike - w4w - 24 (Murray Hill)Hi, I'm the stupid white girl that hit you with my bike today. I wish I could say that I'm the type of person who always does the right thing, but clearly I am not. However, I am someone who can admit when they've made a mistake. I'm incredibly sorry that I didn't stick around to make sure that you were really OK and allow you to file an accident report with the cops if you wanted to. You seemed like you were OK, but I've been feeling sick with guilt all day with the anxiety that I might be wrong. About an hour after our accident I went to 2 police stations to see if I could file an accident report after the fact. At the first station I went to they told me that I had to go to the precinct closest to where the accident happened to see if anything had been reported, and when I went to that station they told me that no one had filed a report about being hit by a bike. I really hope this means that you're totally fine. Regardless of whether or not you were hurt I really want to apologize to you, there's no excuse for the way I handled the situation, I was dazed and freaked out, and I acted irrationally and recklessly in my rush to make it to work on time. You are an African American woman with short hair who looked to be in your 30s or 40s. If this is you or you know who this person is, please contact me immediately. I hope there is some way I can make it up to the woman I hit. Please list the street and cross streets where the accident happened or some other details about the accident to prove that you're not just someone trying to scam me. I know that this posting doesn't make me less of a terrible person. I'm sorry.

Oh, please. The only valid excuse for a bicycle hit-and-run is if you need to dock your Citi Bike before the additional charges kick in.

I was going to complain about tightening my saddle and creating the squeak of the devil, but you've got bigger worries than me. And the other thing we need as we get old is a body that you can remove and replace parts on repeatedly. I've already got one that falls over a lot...

Snob! You took your lobster claws off of your handlebars to take a picture! That takes, if not the Cake, then the Frozen Breakfast Pastry with the Pouch of Drizzly White Frosting for Worst Decision of the Week!

I'll bet you were wearing a 5-quart stainless steel colander with chin-strings instead of a Helment!

What if that Frank Doucheface Guy saw you? Think of the CHEELDREN, SNOB, think of the CHEEEEELDREN!

I am sorry you can't appreciate a well put together bicycle. In a world drawn to entropy and chaos, a simple, elegant machine put together correctly is one small sliver of life where everything is just right.

Or you can ride the wrong size frame and wrap your bars bass-akwards and look like a fuckin' gaper and not give a fuck.

Blue loctite (242) on ALL mating surfaces of the BB30 and ALL 5 nylon shims and a 3/4" pnuematic impact to tighten(kidding). Works. Even 2 LBS's could not de-click and smoothify mine and they are well.....the LBS'ssss.

Also, regarding your email, did you really say "we" when you meant "you?"Could be why they dissed and dismissed you.

Alls I knows is when you finally figure out you need the old timey bottom bracket, make sure you get the right taper. JIS cranks don't like ISO BBs. Who knew? Well, okay, I knew, I just didn't know I had one of each.

Wow, the first half of today's post sounded like something Leonard Zinn would write after a few beers and some Wednesday weed. I had to double check the url. Bicycle cycling techy type stuff on BSNYC? OMFG!

Steel-framed bikes with kickstands and ball/cup/spindle bottom brackets will solve all biking problems. Mock me!(For competitions near identical bikes will be used with smaller frames weighted to match larger framed bikes. Since drug screening can be evaded competitors may use any drug they choose.)

The problem with my Fred chariot is that it was was created in Waterford Wisconsin before the dawn of the threadless headset era, so it needs one of those stems named after a kind of feather. And for some reason the handlebar binder bolts on those stems like to break, for me anyway.

When those bolts break they like to do it when you're actually riding the bicycle and when it happens, it makes it pretty hard to steer and brake to a stop at the same time. Luckily for me this hasn't happened when I'm descending at 'Fred woo-boo' speed.

The modern biking cycle is a refined machine, but it's still hard to get a completely silent pedal/crank/bb assembly. My pedals (I think, it's hard to isolate the friggin' noises down there) get a little clicky when the weather gets hot.

CJ, your obsessive compulsion is not a mark of refinement. It's a twitching Asperger-ish defect.

Anon, yer mostly right about BB's, although it took me a while to find the right combo. My pedals have been a pain in the ass, though, probably because I have funky dual-purpose commuter/clippers, but man, they like to complain, no matter how much I grease 'em.

Na I am not much of a Grand Tour commenter. Perversion and One-Liners are my schtick.

I just replaced the bottom bracket, you know the good kind a square taper Shimano UN-55, in my Intense and we MTB'ed Saturday and my bike was clickin and creakin and I was like MUTHAFUand then I looked down and saw the bottle cage dangling helplessly.

I love it when I think it's one thing and then it's another thing I can fix in 50-90 seconds.

Speshulized gave you the wrong canned answer, instead of this, "Hard to say from the picture. I would recommend taking it to the dealer and have them do a proper inspection. Have a great day!"

They should have responded, "Hard to say from the picture. I would recommend scheduling a few extra root canals. Have a great day!"

Yes Virginia, modern crabon bikes with beefy brackets the suck. It's taken us a decade to figure out that aluminum frames with square taper bottom brackets are identically as fast the the douchebag-crabon-Waterford-Crystal, the only real quantifiable difference being an assload of dope.

Current discussion with frame designers (I blame those Swiss/Canuk assholes Vroomen and White) are now telling us that bottom brackets may indeed be too beefy. But hey, think about all those milliwatts you saved with those lead anchors of 20 grams less to carry around...otherwise, you would have to shave your scranus.

I love it when I think it's one thing and then it's another thing I can fix in 50-90 seconds.

I call bullshit, that never happens. It's typically three hours of staring and poking, then 23-34 hours of internet forums (that's including porn breaks), then finally taking it to the dealer and have them do a proper inspection. Have a great day!

I had about 17,985 mosquito's trying to carry me back to the queen so I was making quick work of it. And is it me or do most folding tools seem to be exactly the non-right length you need to properly tighten a bottle cage?

Earn Money with Facebook, Just Post a Picture on Facebook and Get Earning on Every post, Social Media is the best way to earn money online and Facebook is the Most popular website in the World, You can Join any where in the World and Get Earnings with UsFacebook Sharing, Facebook Wall Sharing and Earn with Jobz Cornerjobzcorner.com

So you're correct on both counts, but we all knew the second part already.

Also forgot to mention that I got a late start to work this morning - had to deal with a slow tire leak on the urban assault commutering bike-cycle - and my gosh, the cat 6-ers were out in force going over the Manhattan bridge.

You win the award for bilingual (Spanglish--English) comment; but really, shouldn't you have fit "chingadera" into it? That's the fave word among Central American bike mechanics in Los Angeles, as in "Where's the pinche chingadera, cabron?"

They are wrapped the wrong way. Look at the drive side bar. You are supposed to wrap from the bottom in a counterclockwise direction. BSNYC has them wrapped clockwise aka the wrong way. Refer to the park tools tutorial for reference. This make for a little flap that curls back near the lever.

This is why I wanted a better pic of your bars to critique your bridgestone. I should have extrapolated from your fucked up seat angle that you would have a goofy tape job. You should sell that bike to someone who will appreciate it.

Originally it had one of those plastic SRAM/Truvativ/Whichever PF30 to BSA adapters. It was working fine.

When I removed the BB to clean it I replaced it with the Praxis, figuring it would be more easily serviceable. (You have to knock out the SRAM adapter if you want to de-gunk the BB shell or replace the BB cups.)

Once installed, there was play in the crank no matter what I did, including replacing the plastic bearing covers as per Praxis's instructions.

I just removed the Praxis and put in a new SRAM/Truvativ/Whichever and it seems to be happy again. Though I suppose when it has to be serviced again I'll have to knock it out, break out the headset press, press in a new one, blah, blah, blah.

I think outboard bearings in a threaded BB shell were the pinnacle of BB technology. It's been downhill since then.

You're a dimwit. Almost everything you point out is wrong. You're seeing shims on my other bike where there are no shims, backwards tires where they're frontwards. You don't very much about bikes. You really don't. I've never felt the need to tell this to any other commenter.

You are a cautionary tale of what happens when you learn everything you know about bikes from Bikeforums.

CJ,The drive side bar should be wrapped CW. That's so when you are exerting force you are going "with the grain" as they say and the tape is less likely to unravel or get bunchy. And vice-versa for the other side. Plus the flow that way fits the natural progression of the hand. I don't know much about bikes but thats just common sense. Also, boobies. And labia.

1. Thanks Snob for finally explaining why you did the Rapha ride on your Specialized and not your Ritte!

2. Could your fiddling with the Ritte's bottom bracket be a case of over-maintenance?

It's true that Freds tend to do that, fix things that are fine. A properly installed bottom bracket can be working well for many years. I say if your ride less than 12000 km/year (7500 miles/year), there is usually no need to worry about the bottom bracket of your bicycle.

3. In the last year or two, Specialized have been giving/sponsoring/placing their products to many popular cycling bloggers. For example, see Fatcyclist or the Cyclingtips guys, now regularly riding/showing their free Specialized bikes and equipment.

So, is this blog entry a slow introduction to your new passion for Specialized bikes? Will you introduce us to your new Specialized bike(s) in the coming installments? (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

You're a dimwit. Almost everything you point out is wrong. You're seeing shims on my other bike where there are no shims, backwards tires where they're frontwards. You don't very much about bikes. You really don't. I've never felt the need to tell this to any other commenter.

..then he tells you about his lifelong struggle with chronic dyslexia and you feel like a total asshole. or, not.

Well at least you got a response from Spesh-all-eyesed to your tweet. I tweeted them a pic of my seat stay which is cracked nearly all the way through (never dropped or hit so who knows) but no reply. Oh, and they also actually have the bike- the LBS sent it to them last week after their "inspection".

I don't consider pulling a BB once every year or two to be overmaintenance, and before all this press fit stuff it was a very simple operation about as complex as removing your seatpost.

Don't worry, this is not a slow introduction to my new passion for Specialized bikes. Actually, it's the oppositie, which is gradually admitting I own an older Specialized bike, and what little passion I have for it waned considerably when the company told me I had to have it inspected because it softly fell over.

mikeweb -- Back in the age of quill stems, I went to a bike shop run by a wonderful character who was also an excellent mechanic. He always, always tightened quill stems using a torque wrench.

After he passed on I took my bike elsewhere, and suffered a head tube failure where the expander bolt was bearing against the threads. Fortunately, I was just starting out and pulling up on my HBs, which went "bang" and came right out of the bike!

Last time I taped my bars in the wrong direction they unraveled suddenly at speed, wrapped my head like a mummy and sent me careening through a parade into a local farmers market where I wiped out several hundred dollars' worth of artisanal whatnot. It was in all the papers. Be warned.

I have a fred chariot that is seven months old with the bb90 pressfit. It locked up, from all of the disgusting scum and frumunda, it turns out. I've never had a bottom bracket problem, so this is all new to me. Just my two cents worth.

Mr. Bike Snob, I've noticed that a few brave local "Freds" actually have and actually use bells on their bicycles, foregoing the obvious unmanliness of them and enduring the obvious increase in wind resistance. You appear to have none on yours (at least the bikes you show on todays blog). What's your take on bells (or the use of any other method to notify someone when you are passing). P.S. I'm one of those sensitive and slightly skittish slower riders who appreciates the heads up.

My doctor sent me to the ER for x-rays for my knee because it blew up after two nights of dancing over the weekend, and they can't order an MRI till you've been thoroughly radiated. Walking sucks, stairs hurt, and my knee doesn't like riding any hills on the Amsterdam much at the moment, but on the Lynskey it doesn't even feel like it's injured!

This is like the day I found out I was allergic to coffee and chocolate. I was ok, cause at least I can still drink wine.

And while I'm at it :) ... here's a toast to the Fredly life: to smooth roads, sunny days, fast rides, and good friends to share it all with.

Stems, bartape, BBs etc are all very important issues, of course, but today's high-powered discussion is being conducted at the expense of another, equally important issue.

Yes; Snobby's mountaining bike.

It's such a stupid bike. It has to have the word "orange" written on its water bottle because otherwise the rider wouldn't know it was an orange coloured water bottle.

Also, such a luridly coloured water bottle defeats the purpose of the rest of the ensemble's camouflage livery, but that's a side issue.

The fork is quite possibly the stupidest, ugliest fork ever conceived, let alone actually built. To then fit it to a bicycle is an act of the profoundest perversity. It's inelegant and would look incongruous on any frame ever made anywhere in the world ever.

The brake levers, pointing straight down toward the earth, as they do, require the rider to be standing upright on the pedals to engage the brakes. This arrangement is obviously the affectation of an exhibitionist who feels compelled to flagrantly flaunt his scranus at every opportunity.

The crank arm appears to be ostentatiously broad -- stylistically, it is totally out of place on this already irretrievably peculiar bike.

The tyres appear to be properly inflated and of a suitable tread and size for the conditions, however, they would crush more innocent cicadas than tyres of a more prudent design. These are an ecological vandal's tyres.

Overall, this is an inconsiderate, insulting and egregious bike. That Snobby can have "fun" riding this abomination beggars belief.

It has no business being there. It has no business being that colour. It has no business being on that or any other bike. As a water bottle, it has no business carrying the name and logo of a bike shop. A bike from that bike shop would most assuredly have business carrying the name and logo of the bike shop, but an orange coloured water bottle does not.

BABS, Knee bad, Coffee Bad, Chocolate Bad (never!). I don't advise you see a gynecologist, you might be told that sex is bad too, ditto an ENT doc.. 48 hours of dancing is a killer, it's like doing back-to-back spinning classes on EPO. If I were your doc I'd recommend laying naked on a beach absorbing lots of Vitamin D, very good for the body.

Socialist health care works wonders if you need replacement parts, or if your problem involves broken bones, but if it's anything less mechanical than that, you're better off paying for natural care. I will wait six months for an MRI, by which time I will have resolved the issue through prolotherapy and physiotherapy, neither of which those damned socialists will cover.

But I did get radiated for free, and in less than two hours, too! Now all I need is three baking soda and sea salt baths a week for three weeks to get rid of the radiation... on the plus side, it's raining today, so it's a good day for a bath.

Sponsored Linkway:

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!